According to the Plan (Frei nach Plan)

Synopsis

A family reunion turns into a long series of disasters in this comedy from Germany. Iris (Corinna Harfouch) is a middle-aged woman who looks after horses at a stable and lives with her mother Silvia (Christine Schorn).

Silvia divorced her husband years ago, and she passes the time by working with a community theater troupe and drinking heavily; Iris has to handle nearly all the household responsibilities thanks to her mom's alcoholism, and often wonders if she'll ever have a life of her own.

With Silvia's birthday coming up, the family begins coming together to celebrate the occasion -- Silvia's youngest daughter Marianne (Kirsten Block) already lives nearby with her out-of-work husband Martin (Robert Gallinowski) and their teenage son, and Anne (Dagmar Manzel), the middle daughter in the household, makes a rare appearance after leaving the country to pursue a career in music.

Silvia's ex-husband (Otto Mellies) even comes to the party, bringing along his current girlfriend (Simone Kabst), who is young and pretty but suffers from a medical condition that prevents her from staying awake.

As the relations gather for the birthday party, Iris struggles to keep her mother sober, prevent Anne and Martin from reigniting their long-dormant affair, wake up her father's date, and try to impress a man she hopes might be interested in her. Frei Nach Plan (aka According To Plan) was the first commercial feature from director Franziska Meletzky.